How to Create New Jobs: The CCC Reimagined

Do you remember the days of dial-up? Web pages would scrolldown the screen in fits and starts. Eventually you could start reading unlessthe web page designer decided to stick a 200K image on the page. Then . . .forget it. Thing of the past? Wrong.

In rural America, slow access to the Internet can be thenorm, and the economic and community development impact is significant. TheUSDA states in an August 2009 report that “any shortfall in rural broadbandavailability is an implicit loss in economic opportunity for businesses,consumers and governments.”

That’s why it was encouraging to learn that the stimulus actappropriated $7.2 billion to expand broadband access across the U.S. Thatinitiative is grinding its way through the system, but farmers need help rightnow.

The Rural Electrification Act of the 1930s brought power torural areas. Today’s farmers, especially small farmers, need similar help notonly tapping into the fire hose of information and opportunities available tothem, but getting connected to guidance on maximizing its usefulness. Imaginethe options: real-time access to weather and crop reports, databases of localand national agricultural extension programs, ordering parts and supplies,acquiring new skills through distance learning, even building an onlinemarketing presence using low bandwidth social media tools.

“One of the salient features of the Internet is its capacityto provide information quickly and cheaply compared to other disseminationmethods,” the USDA points out. But what if you’re over 55 (the average age of afarmer in America), dead tired from a day on the farm, and going online—if youcan get online—just feels like too daunting a challenge?

This is where the new CCC—the Civilian Connectivity Corp—canride to the rescue. Like the Civilian Conservation Corp of the Depression, thecore will be made up of the unemployed, in this case recent college grads. Whyrecent graduates? Because in this country no group is more plugged into theimmediate application of Internet tools and technology. They are experts insocial media, Google searches and Facebook. What would seem insurmountable toan older generation is a cakewalk for these young ’uns, who themselves arefacing an unprecedented slump in hiring just as student loans are coming due.

The first step is to train the students in what farmers needand then—very quickly—get the CCC into the field. Each staffer spends one weekat a time setting up and populating a blog, a Facebook page, and creatingbookmarks on the farmer’s web browser for the sites he will be using daily inhis work.

This is not, however, a “set and forget’ situation. The CCCstaffer is not only responsible for setting the farmer up initially, she willalso need to stay in touch to ensure that the tools are being usedappropriately. One staffer could help manage the online tools and engagementfor two dozen farms, providing the inspiration for, and pipeline to, a host ofnew opportunities. Like the original CCC, these workers would have to make atleast a six-month commitment. And during that time their college loan paymentswould be put on hold.

In running the blog Friend of the Farmer, I have observeddigital haves and have-nots: farmers who have set up decent web sites orFacebook pages, and others who can barely send an email. As I was interviewingone New York farmer, he took a call from a wholesale prospect, a four-starchef. How did the chef find out about him? Through a web site and blog createdby an ambitious staffer (and recent college grad).

Some people see getting a business online as complicated andcostly. It simply doesn’t have to be that way. The original CivilianConservation Corps, one of the most successful New Deal programs of the GreatDepression, left a legacy of great public works. With the farmer-friendlyupdated version of the CCC funded at Depression-level wages, everyone comes outa winner.